1. American Revolutionary War (War of Independence) 1775 – 1783 American Revolution

2. The political and economic reality before the American Revolution
French and Indian War (1754 – 1763)
Colonists tightly linked to the Crown – politically, economically, and emotionally
yet: Albany Congress and Albany Plan – 1754
delegates from 7 colonies meet in Albany, New York
What happened between 1763 – 1776, that destoryed these bonds?

3. French and Indian War (1754 – 1763)
American front of the Seven Years' War
Treaty of Paris
The British conquer Canada
Quebec
Royal Proclamation of 1763
Indian Reserve
Restrictions on settlement
Quebec Act – 1774
British troops to be stationed permanently in the colonies
who should pay these troops?
The British Crown heavily indebted in result of the war

5. Sugar Act – 1764
Earlier Molasses Act (1733) – never effectively executed – was to limit imporation of molassa from non-British providers. Colonists responded by vast smuggling
Sugar Act LOWERS the taxes on imported molassas and sugar, yet introduces new measures of enforcing the tax. It also intrudoces a tax on a number of goods exported from the colonies (lumber)
Opposition (not widespread) from the colonists, whose economies are affected by the Act. In Massachussets - early calls for a boycott of British goods (Samuel Adams)

6. Currency Act
Colonies forbidden to issue paper money (Colonial Scrip)
Colonies to trade only in gold or silver backed money
Benjamin Franklin believed this was the true reason for the Revolution

7. Stamp Act
Practially all printed materials are to carry a royal Tax stamp
"No taxation without representation"
British subjects cannot be taxed without their consent – representation in Parliament
Committees of Correspondence
violent opposition in the streets
Sons of Liberty

8. Stamp Act Stamp Act Congress
delegates from 9 colonies
14 points of The Declaration of Rights and Grievances
colonists have the rights of the Englishmen
sent to the King and to Parliament
Stamp Act repealed in 1766 – yet Declaratory Act passed by the British Parliament to secure its right to regulate the colonies

9. Townsend Acts
New duties on paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea to take "the power of the purse" from the colonies – limit their influence on the colonial governors and judges
customs officials reinforced to challenge smuggling
Boycotts of British goods
British occupation of Boston
Boston Massacre – 1770
five civilians killed

10. Tea Act – 1773
East India Company allowed to trade directly with the colonies requiring only an import tax (Townsend Tariff) – effectively – given a monopoly in trading tea
Tea Act validated the tea tax imposed by the Townsend Acts
Legally imported tea cheaper than smuggled Dutch tea. Smuggling of tea likely limited.
In Charleston, Philadelphia and New York ships woth British tea forced to return to England
Boston Tea Party followed

11. Boston Tea Party – 1773

12. Boston Tea Party
a group of colonists, some diguised as Mohawk Indinas, destroy the cargo of British Tea in Boston (three ships)
Parliament responds with Coercive Acts (1774)

13. Intolerable Acts / Coercive Acts - 1774
response to the Boston Tea Party
Boston Port Act
port of Boston closed
Massachussets Government Act
all positions appointed by governor or the king
Administaration of Justice Act (Murder Act)
royal officials may be tried in Britain
Quartering Act
British troops may be quartered in private unoccupied buildings
Quebec Act
Province of Quebec to be governed along European (French) tradition of governance

14. (First) Continental Congress - 1774
delegates from 12 colonies (Georgia did not send delegates)
Declaration and Resolves (Declaration of Colonial Rights)
boycott of British goods (import from Britain dropped over 95%)
exportation to Great Britain stopped
Continental Association
Colonies to convene again in 1775 (Second Continental Congress)

15. War breaks out
19. April 1775 – Lexington and Concord

16. Second Continental Congress - 1775
Continental Army – George Washington appointed commander
Olive Branch Petition
Reslolution of independence (Lee resolution) – 2. July 1776 – John Adams
Declaration of Independence – 4. July 1776
Articles of Confederation – 1777 (ratified in 1781) – Congress of the Confederation

17. Declaration of Independence (4. July 1776)

19. Declaration of Independence
4. July 1776 – however independence voted on 2. July 1776
written mostly by Thomas Jefferson, assisted by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams
draws from ideas of John Locke, Constitution of Virginia, Virginia Declaration of Rights,
natural rights
rejects the divine theory of government and embraces the social contract model of governance
parts
preamble
list of charges against King George

20. Declaration of Independence
The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

21. Declaration of Independence
      We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

22. Articles of Confederation - 1777